The Diamond Moon by Paul Preuss Read Free Book Online Page B

aren’t.”
    “Look, Marianne . . . if you don’t mind my tagging alone with you and Redfield, maybe we could talk more. Not about me,” he said hastily. “I mean about Amalthea and Culture X . . . or whatever you’d like.”
“Sure. Thanks,” she said, with an open and thoroughly charming smile. “I’d like that. Got any more of this?” She wiggled the glass at him.
    Watching from over their heads, Randolph Mays ob-served that Hawkins, having offered to continue his con-versation with her later, soon ran out of things to say; when his bottle was dry he awkwardly retreated. Marianne watched him thoughtfully, but made no effort to stop him.
Mays chuckled quietly, as if he’d been privy to a confidential joke.

VI
Under the ice of the Shoreless Ocean, night passed by the artificial count of the hours, and morning came like clockwork. Morning changed imperceptibly to afternoon.
    Luke Lim, having skipped breakfast and then lunch in order to pursue his commission into the commercial corri-dors and back alleys—it was one of the ways he maintained his skinny charm—tugged pensively at the straggling hairs on his chin while he studied the holographic nude Asian female on the wall calendar. She was kneeling, leaning forward with an innocent smile on her red-painted lips, and she held a pure white lotus blossom in her lap, its golden heart ablaze with the date and time. Luke’s stomach growled.
    Lowering his gaze a few centimeters from the calendar, Luke could stare into the sweating face and evasive eyes of an overfed blond man who sat in a swivel armchair rearranging yellow slips of paper on his desk. For half a minute the two men sat wordlessly, almost as if they were a pair of music lovers trying to concentrate on the clash and wail of the Chinese opera that filtered through the thin wall between them and the barber shop next door. Then the faxlink on the credenza beeped and spit out another hardcopy.
    The fat man grunted and leaned perilously over the star-board rail of his armchair to snag the paper from the tray. He glanced at it and grunted again, leaning to port across the littered desktop to hand it to Luke, who folded it and stuck it in the breast pocket of his work shirt.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Von Frisch.” Luke got up to leave.
     
“For once I can say the same,” the fat man grumbled. “Which suggests you are spending somebody else’s money.”
     
“Better if you keep your guesses to yourself.”
     
“Gladly, my friend. But who else in our small village will believe that Lim and Sons needs a submarine just to fulfill a municipal reservoir maintenance contract?”
    “Nobody needs to believe anything, if they never hear about it.” Luke paused at the door in the opaque wall and as if on impulse groped in the back pocket of his canvas pants. He brought out a worn leather chip case and ex-tracted a credit sliver. “I know we took care of your bonus, but I almost forgot your bonus bonus.”
    He reached over and grabbed the fingerprint-smeared black plastic infolink unit on the desk and stabbed the sliver into the slot. “Let’s say two percent of net, payable one month from delivery”—Luke withdrew the sliver and put it back in his wallet—“if I haven’t heard whispers in the cor-ridors about the sale of a Europan sub by then.”
“Your generosity overwhelms me,” said the fat man, al-though he did a creditable job of hiding his surprise. “Rest assured that anything you hear won’t have come from my people.”
Luke jerked his head toward the surveillance chip in the corner of the ceiling. “Just the same, I’d fry that peeper.”
     
The fat man grunted. “Doesn’t work anyway.”
     
“Yeah?” Luke grinned his mocking grin. “Your money.” He turned and pushed through the door.
    Von Frisch instantly calculated the amount of Luke’s attempted bribe; he thought he knew where he could sell the information for more. At least it was worth a try, and with luck and a